Donald Trump appreciated Fox News unequivocally back in the Bill O’Reilly days — and O’Reilly’s latest rant against the Trump prosecution in New York shows why Trump liked the fervor of the old guard at Fox. O’Reilly isn’t on Rupert Murdoch‘s channel anymore, but he is getting amplified on Trump’s Truth Social network, where he is trumpeting MAGA attack lines on New York DA Alvin Bragg and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and comparing New York to Venezuela and Cuba, two communist nations with failing economies.
“There is no question,” O’Reilly says, “[that] New York ranks up there with Venezuela and Cuba on the ‘justice scale’…Donald Trump and his family do not deserve this blatant miscarriage of justice.” [NOTE: O’Reilly has had his own legal troubles, and reportedly settled numerous harassment cases against him.]
Bill O’Reilly: “The trial of Donald Trump should end this week, but enormous damage has been done almost across the board. The State of New York's image as a place of freedom and fairness is in tatters. There is no justice in New York. DA Alvin Bragg drops most criminal… pic.twitter.com/vNUffdRiaZ
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) May 20, 2024
O’Reilly warns that anyone applauding the fact that Trump is being made to stand trial should instead be fearful that they may one day be on the “receiving end” of what he characterizes as a miscarriage of justice. O’Reilly echoes the charges of many of Trump’s supporters among elected Republicans, who depend on his approval in order to keep their jobs.
O’Reilly also echoes other TV personalities like Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman whose characterizations of New York — the de facto capital of the global economy — as a place that is unjust and unfriendly to business are less obviously self-serving. O’Leary was especially incensed by the civil trial for business fraud early this year where it was determined that Trump would pay $354 million in penalties. O’Leary’s objection was fodder for left-leaning TV personalities like Jon Stewart, who did a segment on the Shark Tanker’s Trump defense (see below).
At issue is a key difference between Trump supporters like O’Reilly and O’Leary and Trump’s detractors: The latter believe that justice is being served and that the business environment and democracy are made more secure, not less, by prosecuting fraud and election corruption, two crimes Trump of which is accused. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, believe that the law is being used capriciously to single out Trump, and that even famous American due process is being undermined by a political agenda.
In O’Leary’s case, as Stewart emphasizes, that extends to crimes he admits Trump committed, but that he says everyone else commits too.
Commenting on Trump’s fraud trial, O’Leary said what both sides believe: “We [U.S.] are the bastion of safety when it comes to investing large pools of capital. That’s what America represents. We have property rights. We have an appellate system. We have law people trust, and we give you good returns with the least amount of resistance.“
It’s the law that “people trust” that Trump is accused of violating according to prosecutors and four grand juries. It’s O’Leary’s and O’Reilly’s position that people should now stop trusting the law as it is being applied.
